The Maker's Mark
by JuniperGentle
Summary: Maker's mark - a distinctive symbol or shape that identifies products of a particular source. A series of drabbles/short one-shots based on and inspired by the placement of the Fairy Tail mark on various members of the most famous guild in Fiore. #10 - Lucy.
1. Natsu

_Right, an expedition into one of my favourite animes/mangas which I actually haven't written anything for before...well, I just felt like expanding._

_A series of drabbles/oneshots based on the placement of the guild mark of some of the Fairy Tail Guild members. Theoretically regular updates!_

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**THE MAKER'S MARK **

**Natsu**

He knew how strong he was; it was just that sometimes he underestimated the strength of his opponent, that was all. He would fight with all his strength to defend his guild and his friends, and he knew that they knew that and trusted him to do exactly so.

Gramps knew it too, which was why the old man smiled so fondly as the magical brand was pressed against Natsu's upper arm.

After all, who else but the Dragon Slayer could truly be called the strong right arm of the guild?


	2. Grey

_Warning - contains head-canon..._

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**Grey**

Grey's mark was a shield for him, a mask to clothe him when nothing else remained. The deep blue ink coiled around the edges of an ice-caused scar. He had thought that by covering the shame of the wound caused by the white-haired boy who had once been his best friend, he could hide it from the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, his legacy worked against him, and when the others eventually found out, he expected laughs, concern, maybe even anger (though directed at who he couldn't decide).

What he didn't expect was Cana placing a gentle hand against the mark and saying "You know, it would have healed much better if you hadn't tried to hide it..."


	3. Erza

**Erza**

Erza had thought long and hard about her guild mark before asking for it to be placed at the top of her left arm. Macao, who was doing it, looked puzzled.

"But Erza, everyone knows you're right-handed..." he began.

Erza just smiled. After all, she didn't just have swords and armour in her private universe. There were shields as well.

So the mark went on her left arm, her shield arm, and she swore to die defending the guild that had always shielded her in return.


	4. Elfman

**Elfman**

The mark pulsed over the strong artery in his neck. With every heartbeat he knew that his guild was in his blood, in his heart. And he swore that the day he stopped defending his guild as a Man should would be the day that blood no longer pumped beneath the mark that proved he was Fairy.


	5. Wendy

_By special request, Wendy! I might do Lisanna a bit later, when I've decided what to do with Mirajane. Many thanks for all the reviews and faves - I'm super busy or I'd reply to all of them individually!  
_

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**Wendy**

They asked her where she wanted her guild mark, and for a long, long second she didn't know what to say.

"You have to have one," Natsu pointed out from where he sat perched on one of the tables. "Soon as you've got one you can come out on jobs with us and stuff!"

Jobs? She hadn't really done much in the way of jobs in Cait Shelter... she'd never really needed anything because it was all there already, and she had been too young or too fragile or she wasn't allowed out on her own and then eventually it had been Nirvana and Carla had a bad feeling about it like she always did and Natsu and Jellal and Erza had been there and then...

Wendy took a deep breath and wrapped her hand around the blank space where her Cait Shelter mark had melted away like snow as her beloved home dissolved before her eyes. "Here," she whispered. "Where the other one was."

"What about the other shoulder?" Mirajane asked, frowning and clearly concerned, but Wendy shook her head. She wanted to remember them every time she glanced down and saw the curling tail of the mark wrapping around her upper arm. She wanted to remember the family she had lost, and the family she had gained in return.

Suddenly, she thought of something. "Mirajane? Can it be blue, please?"

Perhaps not everything had to change.


	6. Evergreen

**Evergreen**

She was beautiful, and she knew it. As lovely as a statue, as a perfect flower.

She had found very quickly that she received the most compliments on this exact topic if she wore dresses with low necklines, or no shoulders, or both. This was unfortunate, as that also meant that she couldn't wear something beautiful in her lapel.

That was why she chose to have her Fairy mark printed there, just as lovely as a stone brooch, or a delicate nosegay – but everlasting and unbreakable.


	7. Fried

**Fried**

Fried loved Fairy Tail, more than he would ever admit to anyone. He hid it well, only allowing the tiniest hint of symbolism to leak into the outside world, like smudges from a pen that wrote an epic in his heart.

His sword was one, and it quietly pleased him to think that no-one realised just how important it was to him. The blade with the Fairy hilt was the best channel he had ever found for his Rune Magic, the magic that had grown and flourished as he had learnt through the guild.

But the other sign had come before the blade, from back in the years when he still drew the runes by hand or with the metal stylus that his father had given him. His guild mark lay on his hand, his writing hand, and with every rune he wrote he remembered the guild he wrote them for.

And, later, he remembered the guild that had forgiven him when he had raised that hand against them.


	8. Bixlow

_I'm trying to do these in sets, so Laxus is next, then Mirajane and Lisanna (I'll move Elfman's chapter later)_

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**Bixlow**

Bixlow couldn't really understand Laxus and Fried. Both of them were so quiet, so reserved! They never spoke unless they absolutely had to. Even Fried's magic was quiet, and that was no fun at all in Bixlow's book. After all, he loved the sound of his own voice, and loved his babies for so loyally echoing him.

That was why he asked for his brand to be placed in the middle of his tongue, however weird it felt at the time. That way, every word he spoke was for the guild, where he had found people who honestly cared about what he had to say, and wouldn't yell at him to shut up (well, not too often anyway). It was where he had met the other Raijinshuu, the only people he would ever trust his life to.

Now, whenever he spoke and laughed and taunted his enemies, he felt the guild there with him in the tingling brand.


	9. Laxus

**Laxus**

He tried to hide it. He wrapped it in coiling tattoos that lapped across his chest and down his back and arm, and tried to pretend that it was just a design, nothing more. But when it was taken from him, it left a hole that was strange and inexplicable, and it wasn't long at all before he realised that, just as the mark was integral to the balance of the other tattoos, the guild he had lost was just as important.

There was a reason why he had asked for it to be placed only inches from his heart.


	10. Lucy

**Lucy**

"Really? I get to pick?"

"Of course you do!" Mirajane smiled. "Your guild-mark proves that you're one of us! It's very important that you put it somewhere special."

Lucy looked down at herself. Where would be best? Somewhere visible, definitely. She'd left her old life far behind, and she wanted to be reminded of that every time she caught sight of her mark, her passport to the guild. Somewhere that would be the first place she would see when she woke up, when she used her magic, somewhere that reminded her of just who she was now...

Of course! It was easy when she thought about it.

"The back of my hand," she said decisively. "My right hand."

Mirajane nodded. "Any particular colour?"

Pink. She liked pink. It was cute and it was girly, just like her.

And so the stamp pressed again the back of her right hand, warm and faintly buzzing as it lit up.

(And right down in her heart of hearts, Lucy knew that it was just too cliché to have asked for it on her left hand, the hand Natsu had grabbed when he pulled her away from the oncoming army into the crazy embrace of Fairy Tail - but it was close enough for her.)


End file.
